Avanti makes no mention anywhere of which services serve them. They have mostly been appauling with complementary catering in my experience with them, with a couple of exeptions over the years (starting from the end of the Virgin era).
In principle they all serve them Monday to Friday.
I certainly am!
It is not - I simply point out that one does not follow the other. You are trying to compare the costs associated with offering one quite simple "meal" of perhaps bacon, sausage, egg, hash brown/black pudding and a cup of tea ( which will be marginal and lost in the 1st class mark up) and a the costs associated with a full dining/meal service and saying that because the former is a quite a cheap offering therefore the later must be cheap.
IMO you cant base that kind of service on the costs of offering a free ( at the point of consumption), simple breakfast. A full dining service would need several menu options, wider refreshments, crockery, cleaning and refreshing of the dining car ( which eats up paying space on already bursting trains) after each sitting, differing cooking equipment, more trained chefs, en route crew changes, contracts for fresh items and en route stocking points to provide a decent service. ( which is stuff I can think of off the top of my head!)
You are choosing whether to travel on LNER because they offer you a butty or a tiny plate of something that is supposed to be a curry, free in first class? In second class we go to Greggs before we get on!
No - but I did used to upgrade to Virgin Trains first class because of their catering offer. It's certainly a draw if good enough.
it isn't worth it now by all accounts!
I think you are going a bit overboard here and revealing a bit of a catering chip on the shoulder! 'A predictable yet high quality offering' can mean different things to different people - it must do if Greggs is the arbiter of Lowest Common Denominator acceptability!
i wouldn't agree an airline meal is high quality. I think the infrastructure to store, handle and load the meals would be the issue rather than the staff
Given that "costed properly" includes a kitchen taking up one third of a carriage on 100 IETs, and the purchase cost per carriage was roughly estimated at £2.2m-£2.4m five years ago, that's £80m for the fleet... even before the on-going leasing/maintenance costs ("nearly 4 times as much") in the weird Hitachi lease deal.
Correct.
Helps out, but not responsible for it. To comply with Enviromental Health regs it would involve the TM changing their outfit to cook in the kitchen. Serving drinks and pre-packed foods is okay, but freshly cooked stuff and/or unwrapped food is a different matter. I don't know if trains are exempt from EHO regulations, but I still wouldn't fancy any food that hadn't been prepared following the health guidelines.
Accountants rule the world I'm afraid. I tried to convince my accountant I wanted to travel by train, but he promptly showed me it was six times cheaper to take the car! It may be nicer to take the train (but not always, if it is heaving full and/or cancelled) but money (like it or not) is the determining factor for many, both business & leisure. It's a hard sell to justify it. Indeed the accountant showed me someone who had found it cheaper to buy a car and do the journeys than travel by train. And they they still had a fully taxed and insured car at the end of it! So I'm not massively surprised TOCs are pulling costs where they can. Catering is an easy saving for them.
This is my general point, I was inquiring to see if it would be financially viable to offer a better first class experience, as I do think there is a market for it. Even if it may be more profitable to not provide meals, I completely agree that there is nothing at all wrong with providing a nice journey for the sake of a nice journey - travel should be enjoyable.
Ultimately the Caledonian Sleeper manages that experience on the basis of subsidies that far exceed the equivalent LNER/Avanti day trains.
At risk of getting political, there is plenty of wealth in this country to tax. It’s not an inherently exploitative demand to have a meal on a train, indeed I’m sure that if the service were good enough you could charge above all the necessary costs and make a profit.
It doesnt need to take that long to restock as you wouldnt need a full restock of everything on board and with using a real time inventory monitoring system you could easily say, on a Euston to Scotland run, have a restock of any items ready to go in a module at Preston plus say 5% more just in case of food items to do a quick swap over - they seem to close the shop there anyway for a stock check
One comparison is the charter train market, which is unsubsidised. Obviously prices vary with routes, but typical prices for full day trips seem to be around:
The difference is far more than the cost of providing the meal; it is about market based pricing.
But equally, TfW offer substantial 3 course meals for £22 - I find it hard to believe that these are served with a roughly £80 subsidy per meal.
The charter train offering is more akin to a silver service restaurant than e.g. pub dining, which I imagine TfW's to be (though I've never used their version).
There is no way £22 per person is covering the total cost of a 3 course, several option, on train, chef prepared, fresh meal ( and wine list irc). The TfW Cardiff services cant be servicing more than 25 covers (being generous) per trip. Call it £800 a trip with booze ( on a GREAT day) . No way that is the full cost of the service. None.
I know that looking at costs is really dull and unromantic but it is reality.
One could argue that part of the reason we're in such a state, generally speaking, is a ruthless focus on costs at the expense of intangible benefits or long term benefits meaning that actually in a more holistic view being ruthless on cost:benefit is harmful. But, of course, precisely because intangibles are, funnily enough, intangible, it's hard to know one way or the other for certain.
Indeed, it's almost certainly subsidised to some degree, but not £80 per passenger. I just can't believe that.
I’d agree that staff are the biggest cost, although I think the railways could pinch a trick or two from the airline industry. Airline cabin crew on the budget carriers are on commission for sales and, funnily enough, they’re a lot more active in selling and upselling as a result.
Then your having services at additional stations where its not needed, which is extra staff etc. For seamingly no advantage.
On board staff already are on commission.
Call it £40k a year with employer on-costs and assume 6 weeks a year off holiday+sickness. It works out about £25/hour cost to the TOC. Five meals an hour and it’s £5 staff costs per meal and £5 ingredient costs.
